


Tame

by bellygunnr



Series: Free Men Plural [2]
Category: Half-Life
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26719771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellygunnr/pseuds/bellygunnr
Summary: A bad injury lands Freeman in Freemind's arms.
Relationships: Gordon Freeman/Freemind
Series: Free Men Plural [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931341
Kudos: 72





	Tame

The serum is gold. It's cool against your skin and fades into the flesh within moments, leaving nothing but a freshly-scabbed seam behind. It glows beneath the bandages as they are applied, creating a deceptive off-yellow color, but even that disappears with time. You press down curiously on it, humming a surprised note when warmth flares out in response.

"Don't agitate it too much," Freemind says, voice surprisingly soft. "It's delicate."

You nod. You let him take your hands away but, when he tries to put them at your sides, you squeeze his fingers together tightly. The contact is nice, after hours of combat. You can feel his resignation through the muscles in his hands as he sits down next to you.

"Those antlions," Freemind starts, not quite looking at you. "They're not so bad. It's not just their insides that have regenerative properties."

His voice is nice when he's not yelling. You tilt your head to look at him, keen on listening despite having already heard this before. Freemind had taken to the antlions with a vengeance-- and the Vortigaunts, for that matter. It was he who got White Forest their own antlion pack, burrowed deep some five miles south of the compound.

"The females have these... fangs. You'd think they'd be venomous, right? But I saw them use those fangs to heal up some damaged drones. Only some females have them, though. I haven't been paying as much attention to antlion social behavior as I should, but it is what it is. Anyway, they spit healing goop. It's a mature version of their grub goop. It's slower, but it doesn't cause a massive buildup of scar tissue like other... solutions," Freemind says at length.

He runs a thumb across the back of your hand. You're intimately aware of what solutions he's talking about-- you both bear the joint pains and scars to prove it. You gently pry free a hand, tapping his wrist for his attention. 

He looks at you, tired and vulnerable. There's bags under his eye and a drawn paleness that comes from lack of sleep.

"You look tired," you say. 

"I'm not," he replies.

You know he's lying. You know you're the reason why he's tired, why he's swallowing his ire to hold your hand and kiss your temple. His scruff feels nice on your skin.

"I'll get us some dinner soon," he murmurs into your ear. "You're going to need it." 

In the end, neither of you get dinner. The golden serum saps your strength into drowsiness, and Freemind nods off somewhere between your eyelids fluttering and your chin dropping to your chest. You sink into oblivion to the warm weight of his chest against yours. 


End file.
